Back into the Swing of Things

August has been a super crazy and exciting month! For Starters, the kids both we back to school, yay! Well, they may not share my excitement, but I for one, and glad to have some sort of schedule in place for them. Summer was super bummy this year for them. So far, school has been going well for both of them. Both kids are in classes they enjoy, which is always a plus. They also are both getting back into the swing of their athletics.

Kamdyn

Kamdyn, while still doing physical therapy, is back to basically full-out dancing again since her ankle injury. No pain, which is a plus! She just still has to rebuild her strength and flexibility in her ankle. This is where her PT comes into play and time. I know it's hard to be okay with just not being able to be back to 100% overnight. After all, she's worked years to build up her strength and flexibility... so it's going to take time. I'm hoping she won't have to do PT for much longer because scheduling gets more difficult with a full dance load in the evening and her school during the day. However, we will do it as long as they need her to.

She has been working hard at the studio learning new choreography and helping with the mini-company and the regional 1 company team practices and choreography sessions. I love being able to see her helping others in an area that she's passionate about. I think one day when she's older, she will make a good coach (if she decides to do that). Our studio has grown so much this season also, which I am THRILLED about and I know she likes that too. We have many new faces on the competition team this year, which is totally awesome.

She was actually offered a teaching job for a dance program for this season in a town over from ours, but she chose not to do it as it was on Friday evening, which is her night off and often our traveling day. While it was an amazing opportunity, I do think she needs a little downtime sometimes. Just to rest her body and mind. Plus when comp season starts, you know how crazy busy we get and I swear we travel every weekend.

Brozden

As far as Brozden goes, he's finally out of his boot for his foot. We did some final X-rays and they showed that his foot is healed, however, he is still having some pain with it. Which worries me a little bit. He did start transitioning back into the gym ( following Doctors' protocols or EASING back into it). He was pretty stoked to get back to practicing after a little more than a month off. If he is still having pain next month, we will have to go to the doctor and check it again. I told him he needs to stop breaking things hahaha! I can't wait to watch his gym meets this year. I'm hoping I get to go to a few more this year.

It has been nice since kamdyn is driving herself now, I can spend more time at home with him. I was really missing my time with him something fierce. Ive managed to work my evening schedule around his gym schedule a little more so I can be home on his days off more, which I love!

Us

Also, new with us, we are building a home! Fingers crossed we will be moving in around February 2024. I am so excited. The kids will have more space for themselves, I will have my office so I can have a legit place to work. Once we are in the new house, I think I might work from home one day a week for my day job. This means more time at home with the family, I could cook dinner (which I love cooking), and I would save some on gas since I have an hour drive to and from work every day. We will still be close to my mom, which is great. The kids (and Oliver our cat) are super close with her. Well so am I, she's my best friend. We will literally share a back fence line with her so we can just walk through each other's back yard to each other's houses. YAY!

I'm also hoping that once I get my office set up, I can devote some more time to my own personal businesses and have a decent workspace, instead of the kitchen table. I still need to be able to keep my workspace separate from my home space, even if it is at home, for my mental sake. If that makes sense.

Me

As far as I go... this is my birthday month!! Granted I didn't do much for my birthday, but I'm older... not sure about wiser, but I'm older. We did go to a friend's house the day before and had tacos and played a card game while all the kids played, which was nice. It's not often we can all get together like we used to. It used to be an almost weekly thing with us.. but now life just gets in the way.

I did do that food sensitivity blood test, which only confirmed what doctors have been telling me for years (that I have been ignoring)... I HAVE to stay away from wheat, gluten, and rye.. bleh. My doctors have been telling me that I at least have an intolerance and that I have the antibodies/antigens (what ever it is) that go along with celiac, but I just ignored it... but I guess I'm going to have to start listening now. Oh, I also had immune responses to Bell peppers, chicken, black tea and garlic! Like really?!?! Why??? I love fajitas and probably eat it at least once or twice a week! AND if i have something to drink besides water, its typically an unsweet tea.

Ive been super super busy with work in general, at both jobs. August is one of my businessiest months for both and I think I've just put myself on the backburner again, as I've said before... I have a bad habit of doing that.

At my day job we hired a large number of international employees/Graduate assistants in August and I handle all of them. I love that aspect of my job, but man it was sooooo many this month. There were so many that I couldn't do one-on-one meetings like I normally do. I had to have departments bring them over in batches and I had to reserve our conference rooms to do them in block sessions. It's been crazy all month. I would like to say it's finally letting up, but I still have several that are in the works. It is fun getting to hear about their countries when meeting them though. Ive also been doing some training at work and getting ready to do some traveling.

Also, it's pretty crazy at my evening job since it's "back to dance" time. So it's a lot of back-end work, setting up everything for the season and getting the studio ready, staff and parent meetings, and whatnot. We also had new headshots and photos taken at the studio for the website so that's always a fun time! I can't wait to see what they end up looking like. Our photographer is AMAZING! love her! Also, we are getting close to costume time! That will be my last rush of crazy for the year.. then we will start with competition season

To be truthful, I think I'm in a bit of a funk. I get like that sometimes. I need to make a point to take care of myself again. I was doing pretty good there for a while, but then just got busy again. Not to mention, August is always a hard month for me because it's when my brother passed away.

This year it hit me harder than usual because I am officially transitioning to the time where I had less time on earth with him than without him, which makes me mad and sad and all sorts of emotions that I don't know how to deal with. I was 18 when he died and this year marked 18 years of him being gone. Just in general, his death is one of those things I haven't fully processed and has always been something I deal with daily. Being at work that day alone was tough. I actually had to close my door a few times because I started getting teary-eyed and just needed a moment. I think this is one reason why I'm in a funk. What I really wanted to do was just drive to Kansas, listen to some music, and have some time with him at the graveyard.. but I ended up not being able to do that. I normally also see some of his friends, who come up every year on the anniversary, and who I have become close with. I wasn't able to see them this year either. So texting had to suffice, but it's not the same.

Also, watching my dad's declining health is hard. I thought we were on the upswing for a while, but he's been in and out of the hospital a few times lately and he's just looking so frail, and I don't like it. He's actually going to start coming and staying with me one or two weeks a month while his wife is out of town helping with her grandson. My sister took him to a cabin with her family for a few days. He got to rest and relax and sit on the dock on the lake and fish. I would have loved to join but I was working (story of my life lol)

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Anyways, To avoid making this a vent session about why I'm in a funk I'm going to end this blog here. Take care of each other and check on your friends! Love ya'll!

-Rothrock Mom